Frustration

[Bill Moran]

In response to "Fernando Pinguelo" <pinguelo at comcast.net>:

> I am writing to you because I need to vent. I have tried installing
> version 5.3 of FreeBSD on a Pentium III machine. I thought I succeeded
> in doing it so, but when I tried to build xOrg I realized that I did not
> have all the ports installed and that some other dependencies were also
> missing. I realized then that the installation had not been as successful
> as I first thought.
> So, I tried to re-install the ports from the CD, since I didn't have an
> Internet connection to that machine. Well, I kept getting more and more
> hardware/software errors. I then tried to upgrade FreeBSD to version 6.1.
> And that was what I did; I tried.

On the offhand chance that you are _not_ a troll, let me explain what
the problem here is.

You come from the Windows world.  The first problem is that the Windows
world has very little culture: you buy the software and are expected to
use it.

The FreeBSD culture is an integral part of the software itself.  You are
expected to ask questions and get helpful answers.  The community goes
to great lengths to generate helpful documentation and answer questions
in a timely manner.  By not using the community as designed, you effectively
used the software incorrectly.  As a result, it didn't work for you.

The second major difference between the Windows world and the FreeBSD
culture is that in Windows, you get error messages that read something
like "operation failed: error 0xffcb00002c" -- which is useless to
diagnose a problem.  In the FreeBSD world, you will get extremely
_specific_ and helpful error messages that will lead you directly to
the source of the problem (OK, not always, but we try).

I noticed that you complained of errors, but didn't tell us what any of
the errors were.  Based on my experience with users, that probably means
that you didn't bother to read them yourself.  Again, this is using the
software differently than it is designed to be used, and will likely
result in failure.

If you've already decided to give up and aren't willing to try again:
farewell and good luck.  If you ever change your mind, we'll still be
here.

-- 
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.